Ron Paul Won't Endorse Romney, Sees "Essentially No Difference"

Ron Paul, the maverick Texas congressman who has twice run for the Republican presidential nomination, won't endorse the nominee of his party. Though Paul said last week it was "very unlikely" he would endorse former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, he made it definitive in an interview October 11 on the CNBC program Futures Now.

Ron Paul, the maverick Texas congressman who has twice run for the Republican presidential nomination, won't endorse the nominee of his party. Though Paul said last week it was "very unlikely" he would endorse former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, he made it definitive in an interview October 12 on the CNBC program Futures Now.

"No," he said, plainly and unequivocally, when asked about an endorsement. Neither the GOP challenger nor President Obama will change the course of fiscal and monetary policy that is leading to what has been called the "fiscal cliff," Paul said, because both are captive of special interests. And neither will act to stop the Federal Reserve from papering over the growing chasm of debt by inflating the money supply in a policy called "quantitative easing."

"Both [are] within the establishment where they need the Federal Reserve as lender of last resort to make sure that you can take all the risk in the world," Paul said, describing the "Fed" as an essential prop of what is essentially a "one-party system" in which both Republicans and Democrats refuse to cut federal spending.

"I've been in this business a long time," said the 12-term congressman "and believe me there is essentially no difference from one administration to another, no matter what the platforms [say]. The foreign policy stays the same, the monetary policy stays the same, there's no proposal for any real cuts and both parties support it."

Economic analysts are warning the already weak economy will be knocked back into recession by the December 31 expiration of personal and business tax cuts, an increase in the alternative minimum tax and the beginning of taxes related to the "ObamaCare" health care law — all combined with "across the board" spending cuts required by the sequester provision of the agreement to raise the debt ceiling made in Congress on August 1, 2011. In agreeing to an increase in the government's borrowing authority, the lawmakers stipulated that automatic spending cuts would occur unless Congress acted to reduce annual spending increases and lower the nation's debt, now pegged at more than $16 trillion. According to the financial journal, Barron's, more than 1,000 government programs, including military spending and Medicare, will face steep cuts. Though some analysts claim the effect will be gradual, calling it more of a "fiscal slope" than a "cliff," nearly all agree the direction for the economy will be downward.

Photo: In this Jan. 23, 2012 file photo, Republican presidential candidates Rep. Ron Paul Paul and Mitt Romney share a laugh during a break in a Republican presidential debate at the University of South Florida in Tampa: AP Images

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